Like most mining services companies, Boart Longyear has suffered from the downturn in investment in the mining sector over the past 18 months.

The share price of ASX-listed global mining services company Boart Longyear spiked on Tuesday after it announced Rio Tinto executive Jeffrey Olsen will start as its new chief financial officer almost a year after his predecessor left.

The company’s share price rose to 47¢ when the market opened on Tuesday from a Monday close of 41¢. The share price has plummeted from a high of $2.29 on February 13, 2013, but has been climbing from its nadir on December 5 of 27¢.

Lee White, CEO, Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia says in the digital age “keeping within boundaries of the law isn’t enough to protect a company from generating a bad reputation. You now need to be within the bounds of what the public deems to be ethical.”
Photo: Sasha Woolley

More than a decade ago the triple ­bottom line added social and environmental concerns to profit. But in the absence of legal compulsion, responsibility was hived off to sustainability managers and public relations departments. Now the ethical ground has shifted squarely under the feet of CFOs as politicians and social media have shone a light on the extremes of tax minimisation, whipping a storm of moral outrage as tax takes dwindle and citizens are forced to swallow big cuts to public spending.

Doing business in developing markets where bribes are how officials get paid has become a lot riskier and supply chains are being scrutinised for industrial abuses as finance bosses take to offshoring with gusto.

Peter Day, a director on the board of the former Centro and the business representative on the accounting and ­ethics standards board, is not alone when he suggests “values gateways” should bar executives from receiving bonuses if they don’t meet formal ­ethical standards. He says ethics are essentially customs, and these are changing as technology makes it easier to circumvent national controls, but also makes it easier to blow the whistle.

The European Parliament has introduced mandatory rotation of audit firms every 10 years in a surprise last minute deal on Wednesday.

The big accounting firms have been fighting the move as it reduces their hold over clients, with longstanding audit assignments giving them a foot in the door to offer more lucrative business such as management consulting.

But auditors argue the introduction of mandatory rotation has failed to bring improvements in independence or competition where it has already been introduced, including in Italy and The Netherlands.

Five of the 10 biggest M&A deals of 2013 have been announced in the three months since the election.
Photo: Andrew Quilty

Advisers and bankers are keeping their fingers crossed a smattering of bidding wars are a sign boardrooms are confident enough for 2014 to be a fine vintage for M&A deals.

M&A is high risk, with many variables over long periods, and regardless of the economic cycle, extracting real value is hard.

But veteran takeover lawyers Tony Damian and Rodd Levy, from Herbert Smith Freehills, reckon a combination of a new, ostensibly more business-friendly federal government, shareholder pressure to return cash or do something useful with their money, and more positive signs from developed countries – not to mention access to relatively cheap capital – is tipping their hand.

The average pay for the top-10 earning finance bosses has fallen by 5.2 per cent in 2013, while it has risen 7.2 per cent for the highest paid female CFOs.

The fall partially reverses a 10 per cent rise last year.

However, there are several newcomers to the top echelons of finance chiefs this year, and on average the individuals now in the top 10 paying roles have seen their pay rise by 37.5 per cent to $4,16 million. But excluding retirees, promotions and new appointments, the rise was about 8.3 per cent compared to 2012.

The new charities commission has made similar arguments to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation that it should be given the chance to prove it will actually cut cost rather than add to it.

As it said before the election, the Government still intends to scrap the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and return control over NGO reporting to the tax office.

Murray Baird, Assistant Commissioner of the Australian Charities and Not-For Profits Commission established in November 2012, said most charities want to keep the ACNC because it is solving their biggest problem - the cost of multiple reporting to different states and licences to approve fund raising.

More than 20 chief financial officer jobs have changed hands during the ­traditional November annual meeting season, but last year’s generational changing of the guard at big listed companies appears to have run its course, with fewer high-profile retirees.

An exception is Woolworths finance director Tom Pockett, who is retiring next year after 11 years in the job.

Some other high-profile moves include online real estate business REA Group CFO Jenny Macdonald announcing last week she is moving on for personal reasons.

Despite all the choices on offer for funding – including our own nascent bond market and banks champing at the bit to lend – given the trove of cash in their treasuries, companies have mostly been using the money on offer from debt investors to refinance, not buy.

This means that as they fill out the holes in their debt maturity profiles, corporate treasurers ease back again on borrowing, just as many Australian corporates have done in 2013 after a busy year in 2012.

Woolworths finance director Tom Pockett will be replaced by the retailer’s general manager of corporate finance David Marr on February 1, with Mr Pockett retiring by July after 11 years as CFO, writes Sue Mitchell

Mr Pockett has worked with three CEO’s in that time - Roger Corbett, Michael Luscombe and Grant O’Brien.